I sympathise, I really do, with all those who have qualified as a hypnotherapist, planning to start their own business and with no real idea about how they are going to do it.
Eleven years ago that was me. The best marketing ideas I had were get a website and dish out flyers everywhere I could.
The main reason I didn’t really explore other methods was that I had blown all my money on the qualifications! It hadn’t really occurred to me that I was going to need marketing training, or professional materials, or that it would cost money to get my website onto page one of Google.
Even if I’d had the money, I probably wouldn’t have known what to do with it or who to trust to advise me.
Another one of my early mistakes was taking advice from people who thought they had great ideas but who ultimately didn’t know anything about the business I was going into.
Luckily I did stumble into some credibility creating ideas.
Writing – writing both a book and regular articles helped to raise my website up the Google charts.
Podcasting – the market is a bit flooded these days but I started my show when iTunes was brand new.
Creating products – I created hypnosis products and sold them on my website.
Database building – I used all of the ideas above to create a mailing list.
As I mentioned I did this all myself because I didn’t have the funds left to pay someone to do it for me. The upside of that is that I had a huge learning curve. I know as much about marking as I know about hypnotherapy! The downside is that it cost me in terms of my time and energy levels.
You will need to assess your own circumstances to decide how best to get started but the very first thing you should consider is working in a specific area of expertise i.e develop a niche that you will become known for. It will make your marketing much more highly targeted and ensure you appeal to your ideal client. Plus it means you are not having to compete with the billion other hypnotherapists just like you who qualified the very same year.
By Gemma Bailey
www.peoplebuilding.co.uk
